Cheap Champagne
by Shimegami-chan
Summary: One-shot. Call him jaded, but he just can't let go.


A/N: I wrote this for my Fiction class last winter. I had a habit of writing my original fiction whileadding elements ofexisting characters; however, like _Go By Train_ this piece was a flat-out fanfic (though I used 'Nancy' in the version I submitted for class) and I guess it's about time I submitted it here, too.

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Cheap Champagne

_by Shimegami-chan_

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"I hate cheap champagne. Too bitter. And the color and composition - it's deceptive. It tries to make you think it's something more than it actually is." I paused, as if to give this a moment to sink in. "Natsuko should know better."

I had told her that at no wedding of mine would there be drinks that would be left sitting on the tables for the caterers to laugh at. She took me seriously then, arranging some that was a higher grade of inexpensive, but evidently not enough to remember. Either that, or she didn't care.

"I guess." My brother Eric swirled the liquid in his plastic goblet, looking dubiously at it. "I never really thought about it before."

"Bad champagne makes for a bad impression," I pronounced.

"Nobody wants to shell out for two hundred people to have expensive drinks. Come on, give them a break." His eyes were riveted instead on the bride and groom, laughing as they approached the cake together. The five-tiered monstrosity was topped with smiling plastic figures of a newly-married couple. At twenty feet, the miniature groom seemed to be smirking in my direction.

Natsuko reached up and moved the figurines to face each other, turning the groom's beady little eyes away from the room and onto his bride. She looked slightly more comfortable under his gaze, being beady-eyed herself. I looked away from the cake before Natsuko noticed I was watching. She'd probably give me another one of her fake smiles and hide her pity-slash-happiness. Natsuko never wanted to look too happy unless everybody else was - it was her defense mechanism of choice throughout our fifteen years of marriage.

Eric downed the remainder of his goblet without changing expression and set the cup on the table, crossing his arms over his chest. "I wonder what kind of cake it is."

"Probably just vanilla. I'm sure Natsuko managed to win any argument over the cake." Like the way I won the champagne argument, she saw the cake as being symbolic somehow and insisted on it being wedding-day white. Didn't help much that vanilla was also her favorite flavour.

"Ah. I'm looking forward to it."

"Don't get your hopes up," I told him. "The icing they put on it so it doesn't melt makes the stuff taste like you're chewing the granules themselves. It's like you're begging for diabetic shock. Pure, unadulterated sugar."

"Gee, thanks for the tip. Sounds like someone's feeling jilted."

"I only speak the truth." I shrugged and spread my hands wide, causing the too-small tuxedo to constrict painfully against my chest. It would (supposedly) be in bad taste to wear my only good tux (which I'd worn to my wedding) while my ex-wife was being remarried, so I'd rented one from that cheap place downtown. The closest they'd had on such short notice was noticibly small on me.

"Do you have to be so pessimistic? Well, you haven't changed much, I guess." Eric looked away after this cryptic remark, leaving me wondering which past version of myself he might be referring to. I certainly was considerably less jaded and honest in high school, thankyouverymuch. Even now I didn't really think of myself as being particularly hardened, just realistic. Wedding cake tasted bad and was disgustingly expensive, at that. If I ever got remarried, I told myself, I'd be skipping the cake altogether. We could have wedding cookies or something less troublesome.

The room dimmed - someone had plugged in a dozen sets of those icicle lights and turned off the ugly flourescents that had been shining on us all evening. The dormant disco ball was mounted on the ceiling, absorbing what the icicles were giving off and throwing white and blue reflections haphazardly over the guests. "They're cutting the cake now," Eric pointed out needlessly. He reached for his goblet and seemed surprised to find it empty.

Natsuko's slender fingers were almost invisible on the handle under that man's beefy hands. Together they raised the ornamental knife and cut themselves a chunk of cake, toppling it onto the plate Takeru handed her. She let our youngest have the first piece, laughing as he ran back to the table. Her new husband handed the knife to one of the caterers to finish off.

A girl in a white blouse was coming around with a glass bottle, pouring out more of the cheap alcohol. Eric waved her over and she shyly filled his goblet and topped up mine before I could pull away. I took a sip and put the cup down on the table in disgust.

Another server brought around - predictably - vanilla cake. I waved her away once Eric had accepted a slice, wincing at first bite as if he hadn't actually believed what I'd said about diabetic shock.

Wordlessly I handed him my untouched goblet of champagne. Pessimistic? No way. Just realistic, I keep telling myself.

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-_end_-


End file.
